THE Government’s state censor, Ofcom, is now actively attempting to clamp down on any debate about climate change that challenges establishment orthodoxy.
Two decisions by Ofcom this month have made this crystal clear.
The first concerns a GB News interview with US President Donald Trump, in which he called climate change a ‘hoax’.
According to the Daily Telegraph: ‘GB News is facing an investigation over claims it broke broadcasting rules by failing to challenge Donald Trump when he called climate change “a hoax”. Ofcom said it had launched an investigation into a re-run of a GB News interview with Mr Trump for the midday broadcast of The Weekend.
‘The regulator previously declined to launch an investigation into the original airing of the same interview 12 hours earlier, on GB News’s The Late Show Live, stating the programme had featured “alternative perspectives” as part of a panel discussion. The new investigation concerns a second screening of the sit-down interview on November 15. Ofcom is expected to examine the surrounding content shown alongside the interview.’
I am not quite sure what right Ofcom thinks it has to challenge anything a foreign leader says. The President is fully entitled to his views and, whether Ofcom likes them or not, the public have a right to hear them and make their own judgement.
Interviews with foreign leaders are broadcast on all channels and they often include incorrect statements and outrageous views. Is the BBC, for example, now expected to dispute everything that Putin, Xi or von der Leyen tells them that sounds a bit dodgy?
And it is the BBC, of course, which regularly reports propaganda from Hamas or the Iranian regime as if it were factual and without any challenge at all.
Interviews with foreign leaders tend to be deferential, unlike the grillings we expect our domestic politicians to face. The public want to hear what Trump and the rest have to say, not listen to interviewers’ ‘gotcha’ questions.
Was what Trump said controversial? Yes. But the BBC has often broadcast equally controversial claims from the alarmist side of the climate debate.
Take one Greta Thunberg.
In 2019, BBC Radio 4’s Today programme aired a pathetically servile interview with the then 16-year-old, during which she made several outlandish, factually incorrect claims, including that climate change was an ‘existential crisis’. No serious scientist believes this to be true.
She also blamed climate change for starving polar bears and causing environmental damage. But at the time of the interview, it was already known that polar bears were thriving, with numbers having risen since hunting was banned in the 1970s. And whatever the cause of environmental destruction, it certainly is not the weather.
Thunberg went on to state incorrectly that ‘most emissions are not caused by individuals’ but by corporations and states.
At no stage during the interview was she challenged about any of these claims. Nor did the programme offer other guests a chance to present different views.
For some reason, Ofcom never investigated the BBC for their egregious failures.
Much more chilling, though, was Ofcom’s decision last week to uphold a Met Office complaint against Talk TV.
Last October, while still working for Talk TV, Mike Graham interviewed the highly respected energy analyst Kathryn Porter. Most of the interview concerned high energy costs imposed by Net Zero, but at one point the conversation turned to the poor quality of the Met Office’s weather station network, with Porter commenting: ‘And the other thing is that some of these weather stations that do exist produce junk data. There’s one I think in Regent’s Park or St James’s Park, one of the London parks, where the equipment is surrounded by a concrete wall and right next to a diesel generator. So, obviously, there’s a huge amount of heat being both created in that little space and contained by this wall and obviously that equipment is going to record higher temperatures than it would on the other side of the wall . . . you shouldn’t use a weather station that’s in such a compromised position. And then they will say, “oh, well, you know, it’s, it’s so much hotter than it was in the past”.’
Ofcom outlined the Met Office’s complaint in these words: ‘Ms Porter suggested that Met Office weather stations produce “junk data”. The complainant said that this was untrue, and that it had a “world-class network of over 350 land-based weather observation sites”. It explained that each station is located in accordance with World Meteorological Organisation (a UN Agency) best practice.’
Ofcom upheld the Met Office’s claim that it had been unfairly treated, but significantly made no judgement about the accuracy of Porter’s claims. If the Met Office is using shoddy scientific practice, it should surely be exposed, whether it likes it or not.
So, was Kathryn Porter right about junk temperature data?
In 2024, the Met Office was forced to admit, following a FoI request, that most of its temperature station network was not fit for purpose. Of the 380 sites in its network, 297 were classified as Class 4 or 5, based on the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) classification system:
The WMO classification system has five classes based on siting, with ‘1’ being pristine and ‘5’ worst of all. WMO explain the factors that can cause poor ratings:
It specifically states that class 5 sites should not be used for climatological purposes. Yet that is exactly what the Met Office does. Those 380 meteorological stations are used to calculate regional and country-wide average temperatures. When you hear claims that last summer was the hottest on record, remember that the temperatures were based largely on data from sites which have been artificially heated by as much as five degrees because of poor siting – and the Met Office assures us it knows the UK’s average temperature to a hundredth of a degree.
The Met Office’s claim that ‘each station is located in accordance with World Meteorological Organisation best practice’ is an outright lie. Best practice is NOT to use junk Class 4 and 5 sites.
According to the WMO, Class 5 sites add uncertainty of up to 5C. Class 4s are little better with uncertainty of 2C, and even Class 3s can add 1C to underlying temperatures.
Plenty of examples have been found of just how poorly sited many Met Office stations are – next to roads, car parks and airport runways, in suntraps and even in the middle of heat-reflecting fields of solar panels. Some are located in walled gardens built deliberately to create warm micro-climates.
Ms Porter’s censured comment summed up the issue perfectly.
Lying to Ofcom is surely a serious offence. The regulator should immediately reverse its decision, apologise to Talk TV and hold the Met Office to account, not least because the implications for free speech are chilling.
The statements made on the Mike Graham show were not incorrect in any way. The suggestion that criticisms of the Met Office cannot be broadcast because this institution might be offended is preposterous and draconian.
Ofcom’s bias in this case is there for all to see in their findings. Ms Porter, it says, is ‘described as an independent energy analyst’. She is not ‘described’ as one, she is one. Ofcom then proceeds to dismiss the Daily Sceptic as a reliable source of information. At the same time, it clearly regards the Met Office as being beyond criticism, a fount of truth.
There are similarities here with Ofcom’s attempts to shut down debate during the pandemic. Any criticisms at that time of lockdowns, facemasks or jabs were quickly suppressed by Ofcom. Now it seems that challenges to the establishment climate and Net Zero orthodoxy are also going to be suppressed.
Two months ago, Ofcom announced it was reopening investigations into three Talk TV programmes broadcast last year, with which it had already found no issue, following requests from Jolyon Maugham’s Good Law Project.
All programmes featured guests offering their personal opinions about Net Zero and climate change. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and the right to express it. But not for much longer, if Ofcom gets its way.
Its plan is now clear. If you put enough pressure on the likes of GB News and Talk TV, they will stop inviting these pesky sceptics on to their shows. In other words, censorship by the back door.
It is truly Orwellian. Who is to determine what is correct and what is not correct? Ofcom, BBC Verify, the Government?
We might just as well go the whole hog, and have a Ministry of Truth.
